DRIVERS RAMPAGE / THE INJURED: 2 in S.F. who went to hospital recall trauma of attack

Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, August 31, 2006

Photo: Katy Raddatz

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

HITRUN_SF_009_RAD.jpg
SHOWN: Vera Jenkins is still alive, but she was one of the many victims of yesterday's hit and run rampage. Vera is comforted by her husband, Walter DeFrantz in their home in San Francisco. These photos shot on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006, in San Francisco, CA.
(Katy Raddatz/The S.F.Chronicle)
**Vera Jenkins, Walter DeFrantz
Ran on: 08-31-2006
Vera Jenkins, discharged from Kaiser Medical Center, is at home in San Francisco comforted by her husband, Walter DeFrantz. less

HITRUN_SF_009_RAD.jpg
SHOWN: Vera Jenkins is still alive, but she was one of the many victims of yesterday's hit and run rampage. Vera is comforted by her husband, Walter DeFrantz in their home in San ... more

Photo: Katy Raddatz

DRIVERS RAMPAGE / THE INJURED: 2 in S.F. who went to hospital recall trauma of attack

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Richard Hilkert and Vera Jenkins barely slept Tuesday night. One lay in bed at home, the other in a hospital room at San Francisco General Hospital. They've never met, but both were kept awake by the same image: a black SUV barreling down on them as they crossed a San Francisco street.

Hilkert and Jenkins were two of the 19 people injured in Tuesday's hit-and-run spree. Jenkins was discharged from Kaiser Medical Center a little after midnight Wednesday. Hilkert was still at San Francisco General Hospital late Wednesday afternoon, awaiting a transfer to Kaiser, where doctors will operate on his badly broken shoulder.

"I'm still pretty shaken," said Hilkert, who until five years ago ran an eponymous Hayes Valley bookstore much beloved by the city's literary community.

Hilkert had just gotten a birthday massage -- he turned 78 last week -- and was on his way home "for a peaceful afternoon of reading and writing" when he came across a man lying in the street and surrounded by a crowd near the intersection of Sutter and Steiner streets. Hilkert said he kept walking, because the man was already being tended to. Hilkert, who had no idea what had just happened, thought the man was perhaps inebriated.

"As I started in the crosswalk, I saw this car come barreling down on me. I tried to get out of the way but I couldn't. I thought, 'Oh, f -- ,' and then I was hit. He aimed right for me."

As Hilkert lay in the street, bloodied and dazed, witnesses rushed to his aid. "Then someone said, 'Oh my God. Here he comes again.' The suspect did a U-turn and was heading my way again."

His rescuers dragged him away just in time.

Hilkert suffered leg abrasions and a complete break of his left shoulder bone. Fortunately, he's right-handed. "It's been excessively painful," he said.

Jenkins, 40, is still in a lot of pain, too. No bones were broken, but the suspect plowed his Honda Pilot into her back. Like Hilkert, she had just stepped off the curb and into a crosswalk.

Just moments before, the driver stopped to let another woman walking two dogs pass in front of his sport utility vehicle, she said.

"That man hit me on purpose," Jenkins said as she sat on her living room couch in her Western Addition flat Wednesday afternoon. "He came after me."

Workers from Hayes Auto, a repair shop down the block from where she was hit at Bush and Pierce streets, ran to help Jenkins, who was knocked to the ground and pushed into a utility pole. Then she saw the driver make a U-turn on the one-way street and head her way again. "I said, 'Oh my God, is he coming back to kill me again?' "

Alan Yukawa, who owns Hayes Auto, couldn't believe "the guy coming back around again. He was going as fast as he could. He must have been doing 60."

Jenkins was hit less than a block from the home she shares with her husband, daughter and granddaughter. She was on her way to meet her husband for lunch when it happened. She has no broken bones or cuts or gashes, as do many of the other victims. But, she said, she's sore -- there's pain in her hip, her wrist, her arm. Her muscles ache. "To get to the bathroom seems like a mile walk," she said.

And the unprovoked assault has taken a psychological toll.

"Mentally, I'm scared to go outside," she said.

Trauma specialists said that's not unusual for someone who went through what Jenkins did. Post-traumatic stress disorder is not uncommon for victims of violence. They might suffer from recurring nightmares, phobias such as a fear of leaving home, and depression, according to Dr. Bill Schecter, chief of surgery at S.F. General Hospital, which treated seven of the hit-and-run victims. He said those problems "are an expected part of the recovery process" and can be treated with specialized counseling.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, five victims remained at S.F. General, one in critical condition. Nine others had been treated and released.

Jenkins and Hilkert tried to put their ordeal in perspective Wednesday, but it was difficult, given their pain and shock. Both said they feel sorry for the suspect; Hilkert added that he's also angry. Jenkins reflected on Stephen Wilson, the 54-year-old Fremont man who was the only person to die in Tuesday's carnage.

"I feel blessed that I made it home to my family," she said. "And I pray for those who didn't."